#Puffin cookie

[h3llh0undhe4rt]

Themes for Sea Shanty Cookies tags

Aka being autistic about other people oc’s. And what I mean by themes, I mean what music is playing whenever their on screen

Albatross Cookie -Scarlemagne’s Waltz (Kipo). oc belongs to @cosmicwhoreo

Giant Squid Cookie - Worse than death (Nine Sols) Oc belongs to @80bitesofsweets

Black Lava Cookie - Just one more time (Kipo) Oc belongs to @rawdough

Red Crayfish Cookie - Jamack Theme (Kipo) Oc belongs to @shipshinaa

Banana Eel Cookie - Newton Wolves Rap (Kipo) Oc belongs to @cornkernelle

Ambrosia Cookie - Cinnamon (Kipo) ocs belongs to @rawdough

Giant Otter and Otter Pup Cookie Yumyan Hammermeow (Kipo) ocs belongs to @cornkernelle

Ventescra Cookie - Human in Capes (Kipo) Oc belongs to @limboraptor

Ok some ocs I’ll probably get to write later or draw on paper

Puffin Cookie -Relaxing and Stressful (Bee and Puppycat) belongs to me

Blue-ring Cookie - Instrumental Dismemberment Song, meaning just the music, no words.

REMEMBER THIS IS ALL MY PERSONAL HEADCANNONS

[christinetheblackdragon]

idk why but, Tea Knight Cookie gives so much Barristan Selmy vibes

Mercurial Knight Cookie not Tea Knight Cookie, he and Black Sapphire Cookie gives these vibes

Tea Knight Cookie: "What the....?"

[h3llh0undhe4rt]

Puffin Cookie! A harpy like everyone else, although sneezes on her own feathers, she follows Albatross only because of the fact she scammed him and paying off debt. She often collects old toy parts and finds a sister relationship with Mako Cookie.

ocs belong to @cosmicwhoreo please notice me 🫸🫷

Oh, I've never posted any of Albatross' first mates, have I?

Harpies, just like the rest of Alba's crew. With their own reasons for following the often cruel captain.

They're jus a couple of dudes, lads... Friendssss...??? The Lover that doesn't wanna be a fighter, and the Hall Monitor

[sushisusii]

Cookie Thief! @aardpuff

[suckaysuamigos200]

kids friends

[bunnelbaby]

Here’s a list of low stimulating shows to watch while you’re regressing or dreaming:

𐐪𐑂 Slumberkins

𐐪𐑂 Tumble Leaf

𐐪𐑂 Puffin Rock

𐐪𐑂 Stillwater

𐐪𐑂 Trash Truck

𐐪𐑂 Hey Duggee

𐐪𐑂 Five Minutes More

𐐪𐑂 Gullah Gullah Island

𐐪𐑂 Julie’s Greenroom

𐐪𐑂 Llama Llama

𐐪𐑂 Sea of Love

𐐪𐑂 Bug Diaries

𐐪𐑂 Maisy

𐐪𐑂 Oswald

𐐪𐑂 Miffy

𐐪𐑂 Kipper

𐐪𐑂 Musti

𐐪𐑂 Peter Rabbit

𐐪𐑂 Winnie the Pooh

𐐪𐑂 Molly of Denali

𐐪𐑂 Elinor Wonders Why

𐐪𐑂 Sarah & Duck

𐐪𐑂 Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

𐐪𐑂 City of Ghosts

𐐪𐑂 Max & Ruby

𐐪𐑂 If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

𐐪𐑂 Stella and Sam

𐐪𐑂 Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood

𐐪𐑂 Guess How Much I Love You

𐐪𐑂 Sprout’s Good Night Show

𐐪𐑂 Harry the Bunny

𐐪𐑂 Bear in the Big Blue House

𐐪𐑂 Lily’s Driftwood Bay

𐐪𐑂 Bluey

𐐪𐑂 Franklin

𐐪𐑂 Little Bear

𐐪𐑂 Curious George

[theegyal]

When I Was Your Man [ Annie x Smoke ] + 18

⚠️: Smut, Nasty, Peeping Tom, Betrayal, Manipulation, Prostitution, Alcohol Abuse.

2.5 K words

Part 3

Recap :

"You still talk to Crystal?" the older asked.

"Hol' on! You ain't goin' to smash Crys' lil cookie, right?" Stack shot back, straightening up. "Poor thing-Smokey finally resolves to visit her bootyhole only to spit on Annie"

Smoke rolled his eyes, lighting his cigarette, uncaring of the big NO SMOKING sign on the wall.

"She still workin'?" he asked, exhaling a grey cloud off his lips.

Stack's brown eyes blinked once, twice,

Smoke crooked a smile, a gleam dancing in his eyes.

"Tell ha to come by the juke tonight."

Guitar and piano blues, Pearline voice. Music buzzed from the Juke joint, thrilling and loudly.

Folks were dancing, newlyweds grinding skin to skin, some drunkard arguing with the bartender about the alcohol price.

The singer's pitch note announced the twins arrival. Smoke stepped in the sweaty barn, a woman creeping at his arm. A straight face, no more than what he wanted to show. Stack was off in the corner, talking to Crystal, laying out the creepy-ass plan Smoke cooked up to win Annie back.

"Nigga, y'all done lost it fa real," The hooker hissed, arranging the pin in her updo hairstyle "What she s'posed to do, huh? Sit round waitin' damn seven years? Shit, I'da been bent over 'fore the first month, baby."

She clicked her tongue. "Chii—anyways, how much?"

"Now we talkin'!" Stack grinned. "Eighty if you kiss 'im, hunnid-fifty if Annie catch y'all red-handed."

He peeled the bills slow, letting her see every last one. "Real-ass dollars, sugar."

Crystal eyes lit up, her mouth curling into a mean little grin.

"Mmmhmm, love it when we speakin' same language," she purred, snatching  the bills like she been waiting on them all week.

"Shit, I'll ride nigga two times slow 'til that girl lose her mind."

She shoved the cash down her chest, gave it a lil tap."Tell Smokey we got a deal."

The trap had been set, it waited for Annie and new boo to come. Twos can play the same game and Stack couldn't tell which one would win.

"As the time we arrived, the show would be over."

"Good. 'Cause I ain't wanted to go anyway." She said.

Anders caught his girlfriend's wrist, dragging her to his truck, deaf to her complaints.

From miles away, they could hear the blues resonating across the landscape. Annie tapped her foot, swaying her hips on the hard truck seat.

"So you wanted to go after all."

They both laughed. Anders parked close to the barn. They stepped out the engine and walked toward the juke joint's entry, the ground humming beneath them with bass and footsteps.

"Hey, Cornbread," Annie threw gently to the grizzly shaped man.

"Annie," he greeted. "Sir." He tipped his hat to Anders. "Y'all come on in."

Inside, Annie's stomach flipped. She felt anxious. She wasn't the funny one at parties, especially not tonight. Not with her ex posted up across the room, smiling like a fox with a stolen prize. Her eyes stuck to him longer than she meant.

Smoke was parading with a fucking hussy, puffin on his cigarette, a hand sliding snug around that ragtime queen's waist.

The girl was pretty enough to match him—Annie couldn't lie about that : tall, thick-waisted with a petite yet round, swaying backside, brown skin oiled and catching every lick of the barn candlelight. Those greenish eyes of hers, clung to him, hanging on his every damn word.

Annie felt a knot in her stomach, twisting so hard it made her breath hitched. 'A damn frivolous man, he sure had a change of taste. Guess plain ol' me don't shine no more'

She shifted her weight on Anders, arms folded tight across her chest, pretending like she didn't see Smoke lean in and whisper something low in the girl's ear. Whatever it was, it made her giggle and dip her head, all coy and sweet.

Hell, she the one who taught him how to be loving. How to be tender. Now here he was, pouring it out like cheap gin on some wide-eyed bitch wearing too much gloss and not enough shame.

Smoke lifted his gaze and caught Annie's grimacing face.

The effect of his little surprise landed hard, knocking the wind right out her gut. Annie was standing exactly where he wanted her to be.

Yes, twos can definitely play the same game. Her bastard gigolo disrespected him when he dared to open that damn door pant unbuttoned. Worst thing ? She didn't even let him in. He was the fucking father of her child and she belittled him in front of that piece of shit.

Were they over ? If so, he had every right to pull any woman he desired.

Anders said something above his girlfriend shoulders, some joke maybe. Well, Annie missed it entirely. She gave a laugh on delay out of politeness.

Embarrassed, the lumberjack went out. He had in fact told her that he needed a cigarette but didn't feel comfortable smoking inside. Anyway, Annie was too busy with her thoughts to pay attention.

He walked for minutes, away from the juke's ruckus, sat on a bench then lit his cigarette, the tip flaring orange , then fading.

"You always look that tense when you smokin', or just tonight?"

The voice slid in, smooth and spicy. Anders turned his eyes on the newcomer : A big black woman, mature and alluring. Her busty chest hanging two fat rounded yet saggy boobs—not those of grandmas, more the kind to bounce back and forth between every thrust . Her curled, ginger-colored hair stylized in a updo gave her that southern touch Anders had always been weak for.

Her wide hips danced left and right as she walked toward him. Anders could only fantasized of that meaty ol' country ass she dragged behind her. He had been in that town too long to not recognize a back-alley whore.

"Ain't got no pennies for ya ma'am"

Sure, she was delicious to watch but he didn't want no smoke with his lady.

"This night free for you sugar"

She sat beside him, the ruby dress hugging her voluptuous breasts, dipping low in the front with an indecent cleavage.

She crossed her legs, heels clicking in the muddy dirt. She was there to be picked, and Anders might not have the strength to resist her tricks.

Inside the roadhouse, Annie was still planted at the bar—right where Andy had left her. She had lost count of how many glasses of corn liquor she'd drunk.

That motherfucker... she told him she ain't even wanna come to this stupid-ass party.

And now? He was gone. Boof—disappeared from her sight.

"Shit," she cursed, pushing herself up from the stool with effort, legs wobbling beneath her.

Annie was determined to find her way out of this juke joint. She wasn't about to sit there and play along with Smoke's little soap opera.

He wanted to fuck that tramp's cooch? God bless his precious johnson, she didn't give a shit.

Lord, he really thought she'd be jealous of the way he slid that big hand down ol' girl's spine? Or the way he kissed her neck, shameless, right there in front of everybody?

"Good for him," she mumbled under her breath. "Hope she drained him. And not only his dick," she said bitterly between three hiccups.

Alcohol was teasing Annie's system as she dragged herself along the juke's wooden walls. Her drunkard steps led her through a smoky hall to a room threshold.

Yellow lights flashed, blinding her sight then lewd sounds made their way to her ears: moans, groans, bed creaking, thighs slapping, wet and lecherous.

"Do it for daddy."

A husky voice she recognized. She spent so many years hearing it—how could she forget? No...no. Annie didn't want to believe it.

It was true she wished for him to go to hell. She wished for that juke joint mattress to drain him and leave.

But...no ? He was a bastard, a fucking piece of shit... certainly not to that extent?

Not when he knew she was still around?

She blinked hard, trying to focus, to believe her ears were tricking.

Slowly, with bones now trembling, Annie reached for the doorframe, her heart pounding faster than her lazy steps.

She leaned on the dirty window and saw them:

Smoke,bare-chested sitting back against the headboard, legs spread wide—facing her like he knew she'd come looking.

Between his thighs, that butter-toned girl was bent on all fours, ass up, knees stretched so far apart her pussy lips gaped on their own.

He had a tight grip on her curly hair, yanking her head back as she sucked his fat, veiny dick with her wet mouth, slobber running down her chin, spit stringing from his tip to her tongue like she was starving for every inch. She went deep, throat choking on him, then dropped lower to eat his heavy balls.

Smoke never broke eye contact. He didn't flinch, he just stared at Annie, making sure she enjoyed the show.

His gaze lingering at the hoo-doo woman in the window, he let go of the pecan skinned girl's hair and gripped her soft, petite cheeks, spread her ass, squeezed, slapped them together until her flesh jiggled and the wet claps burst through the walls.

The girl bucked, belly shaking, her moans muffled by the huge dick still stretching her mouth.

Smoke wasn't done. He did it again, rougher this time. He pulled her pussy open with both thumbs until they popped apart, cream and juice spilling out with a sloppy, squelching noise.

The girl's swollen clit throbbed, and her pinky inside were all thrown at Annie face.

She was gushing for him.

And Smoke wanted Annie to see all of it.

Wanted her to suffer.

His message, clear as day were written deep in his eyes :

"You see this nasty bitch?"

"You see how wet she is for me?"

"That's what a real man do, babe."

Without understanding her own body, she turned into a damn peeping tom.

Annie's hand clutched the window frame like it could anchor her to sanity, but the heat between her legs said otherwise. Her chest rose and fell too fast, her big tits brushing together with each breath. Her nostrils flared,eyes wide, and locked on the filth playing out in front of her.

That heifer's cookie was too hot. Stretched open and leaking sauce. So wet, Annie had the sick,shameful urge to drop down and taste it.

She should've walked away.

Should've kicked the damn door down and snatched that bitch by the scalp.

But all she did was watching, breathing heavy, her moist thighs unconsciously pressing together.

Her brown roundish nipples hardened under her dress, swollen and aching. Let not speak about her panties. Her fat pussy was drowning in its own mess, throbbing with need and disgust all at once.

And Smoke knew it.

That bastard knew it.

He didn't smile. Didn't smirk.

Just kept glaring at her with that same hooded stare, like she was the one getting fucked.

Then, he shift the obscenity to another angle. He released his dick from the girl’s mouth, stood up across the bed, spat on his hand and dragged it down her gaping cunt.

Annie saw it all. Saw the thick shine of spit smear across those glossy lips before he shoved back in, all the way.

The girl's ass bounced back, jiggling from the thrust before squirting on the sheets.

Annie let out a ragged breath she didn't even know she was holding.

One hand slid to her belly, then lower, hovering just above her underwear.

She almost touched herself.

Almost.

Angry, she mouthed "Fuck you", then fled the scene.

"Where the fuck that nigga at?!" she snapped, now completely sobered up, her shoes slamming angrily against the juke joint's wooden floor.

She'd had enough. Her blood was boiling and her chest was tight, she needed to release all that heat.

"Anders!" she shouted, veins crawling up her temple. Annie was so wrapped up in fury, she didn't even see Stack coming. She bumped straight into him.

"Oof! That's eighty dollars in damages, ma'am," he joked, rubbing his chest like she broke a rib.

Annie rolled her eyes. "You seen Anders?"

Stack straightened his posture with mock formality. "Oh? That gentleman? Last I saw, he was headed toward the storeroom, just behind the band's stage."

"Thank you," she said flatly, smacking his shoulder.

"You're very welcome, my lady," Stack grinned, a little too pleased. He knew exactly what she was about to find out back there.

He kept walking, whistling low under his breath, until he passed the room where his brother was busy handling his sexy business.

Smoke's numb voice cut through the air: "Stack."

Stack doubled back and stepped in. The room smelled : pussy, sweat, semen, ass, all mixed up in the air. The girl on the bed was still squirming, eyes wild, her tongue hot, her pussy glistening and breathless.

"Hold on, what? You just gon' leave me hangin' like that?" she moaned, voice sticky.

Stack blinked, confused. "What the hell ?"

Smoke leaned in close, always wearing his unreadable mask. "Handle that for me," he murmured in his ear, then slid past him, walking out without another word.

"Damn," Stack muttered, watching him go. "Usually I'm the messy one..."

He turned back toward the girl, still all four knees on the wet bed.

He took off his red hat, tossed it aside, and sat down next to her.

"Alright, alright, listen sweetheart. I know you mad," he said, trying to soothe her. "But everything okay."

He leaned in, eyebrows raised. "You can put your clothes on and go... or—"

His eyes slid slow down her body.

"You can stay right here and play with the funnier twin."

The girl looked at him up and down, he wasn't that different from Smoke. Weird, she never knew he was twins. Moreover, his brother seemed happier than him.

"And what kind of game you wanna play ?"

Sigh. Stack succeeded with all points.

On the dance floor, Annie made her way through the crowd. She passed the bandstand, ducked behind a hanging curtain, and slipped into the dim, narrow hallway that led to the storeroom.

The further she walked, the quieter it got. Just the bassline of the music humming behind her, drowned out by a different kind of rhythm.

A thudding. Wet. Repetitive. Followed by a low moan.

Annie stopped. Her brows furrowed. Then she stepped forward. The storeroom door wasn't closed all the way.

She pushed it open with the tip of her fingers and witnessed another nightmare.

Anders, behind a curvy ol' country slut. His pants hanging off his, hands locked tight on her wide waist. He was hunched over her back, fucking her meat, raw from behind with rough thrusts.

He grunted, hips slapping against her BBW' ass cheeks, his breath ragged. "Fuck bitch, yo pussy damn good," he growled, head thrown back.

Crystal arched into it, one leg lifted, giving him more of her cake. "Mmm yass boy. Beat mommy pussy up," she purred

Annie stopped thinking straight. Couldn't move. The sensation was different from earlier when she busted Smoke out with his girlie. Now, she felt murderous.

Her mouth hung open, and the whole world went silent around her. Her heart was beating hard in her ears, but her body just froze. Her throat tightened with the sting of disbelief.

He wasn’t even using a condom.

He ain't even look sorry.

And then—he did. His eyes glanced up and he saw her.

"Annie—baby—" he tried desperately to explain. But Annie didn't speak. Didn't even scream.

All she did was staring at the man she came with, buried balls-deep in a full STD's bag.

He was still inside her. Still hard.

She spat hard on the floor, then disappeared. Her heels singing louder than the bass back in the barn.

Tag list per request :

@jasssdee1 , @katezy2x ,

Tag list from Hush :

I took this tag list from my other fluffy angsty serie HUSH, if you want to be removed just tell me friends ❤️

@thelifeoflagab @juniooox @tadjoa @shamansha @brownskincheyenne @freelandgoddess @Ib-xci @blaqgirlmagicyallcantstandit @iammyownlover @stormynovashambler @summrsovrinterlude @prettygirl2800 @puffmamaa @harleycativy @jasssdee1 @itstayleigh @queenofklonnie22 @bigjh @tadjoa @Isc72 @forzaferrariii , @blxckberrie @avidreader73 @partylikemajima @lolalikesgames @ultralspblr @post-woke @jasssdee1 @lizbehave @kindofaintrovert

A/N : I wanna thank Google for the vocabulary, @uzumaki-rebellion cause it’s literally their stories that inspired me doing smut and less angst 🤣. AND obviously thank youpor— I mean YouTube for the visual inspiration 🙂‍↔️

BTW I LIED Y’ALL I’M NO GOOD AT DOING ONE SHOT STORY

😭. So this one will prolly end up in 5 parts not 3 🤓. Forgive me

[outsidersstuff16]

could you how the gang (individual) would act if you laid on their chest?

Order: Ponyboy, Johnny, Dallas, Soda, Darry, Steve, and Two-Bit

Ponyboy

Ponyboy was laying in his bed, reading A Time to Kill on a comfy Sunday evening and you just got back from a messy family dinner. You were really sad cause your parents announced a divorce so who were you gonna run to? Ponyboy Curtis of course! You knocked politely on the Curtis family door and Darry answered, letting you in. You made a beeline to Ponyboy's room and he didn't even look up from his book when you entered, however when you laid on his chest quietly and wrapped your arms around his torso, it was a completely different story. He set down his book gently and kissed the top of your head and wrapped his arms around you tightly

"want me to read aloud?" He asked quietly, picking his book back up and rubbing your back softly

"yes please, my love.." you said quietly burying your head into his chest, listening to him as he read.

Johnny

It was a cold night out in the lot, as per usual you were out there because your parents were absolutely eggy shit flytrap std sperm links and kicked you out of the house for the night, you and Johnny were sitting quietly beside each other nervously. You were always very nervous around Johnny. Soon enough it hit 46°F. You and Johnny shivered gently. You turned to Johnny and hugged him quietly, trying too keep warm from the cold temperature. he laid down, allowing your head to fall gently onto his chest. It felt so right, Just you and him staying warm under the stars.

"Hey.. I'm boutta fall asleep, I love you.." you said quietly.

"I love you too... Sleep tight, pretty baby.." he said quietly before drifting off to sleep as well.

Dallas

You were stay at bucks with Dally for the night. You were sitting on the floor as Dally was smoking a fat joint, you were feeling really clingy but was too afraid to go up and touch him, you leaned up against the wall quietly before sighing softly.

"the hell is you huffin and fuckin puffin for over there?" He questioned sternly. You apologized softly. He had invited you onto the bed, in which you quietly obeyed, sitting on the bed quietly, he laid down and finished his blunt, you quietly laid your head on his chest, wrapping your arms around his torso, he did so as well, the rest of the night was spent in silence.

Soda

You were very upset. You had been getting picked on and made fun of by Soda's 'fan girls' it made you very upset because you loved Soda for Soda, not his looks but for what made him, him. You walked into the Curtis house knowing Ponyboy was at school and Darry was at work. You walked in and quietly knocked on the door. Soda Le you in, greeting you with a warm smile and loving hug, you sat down beside him in his bed before he laid down and made the "come here motion" to you. You laid on his chest and just broke down.

"I hate the girls who like you, their so.. so mean.. I love you Soda, not your looks.." you said softly, Soda gave a soft chuckle before giving your cheek a kiss.

"I love you too, Sweetheart. Your too nice, y'know that?" He asked quietly, his arms around my waist getting slightly tighter.

Darry

Darry had had a shitty week at work this week and if there was anything that would be able to cheer him up, it was you! You walked in quietly with a plate of pumpkin spice cookies and a love letter you wrote Darry. You put both on the counter and went into his room, he was laying in bed with a sour look on his face. You walked over and laid down, setting your head gently on his chest.

"Darry, bubba, 'm so sorry your week has been so bad... I love you bub, I'll do my best to support you, 'kay?" You asked quietly he just nodded quietly and kissed your cheek and forehead.

"I smell the fucking cookies.. I love those cookies. Thank you darlin'..." He said quietly, earning a quiet laugh out of you.

Steve

Steve was recovering from a hang over rand you were more than happy to take care of him, he was VERRYYY hung over, he had drank 2 bottles of vodka last night which really wasn't smart of him. You had gotten him some food and he ate, you had put on his favorite t.v. show and bought him a couple of liters of ginger ale.

"thank you, mi amor.. I love you so so much.. you take care of me so good... I wanna marry you some day, y'know?" You nodded softly knowing he more than likely wasnt gonna remember a single word he just said after he's all better.

"I love you too Steve, with my entire life.." you said quietly, you laid down in his bed beside him and laid your head on his chest gently, listening to his heart beat as the night wore on, he didn't say much but peppered you head with kisses and giving you the occasional squeeze and having a look of contentment on his face.

Two-Bit

You and Two-Bit had just finished baby sitting his little sister. Two-Bit laid on the couch, beer bottle in hand, watching mickey mouse with an entertained smile gracing his features, you and yawned softly and laid down on the couch with your head on his chest.

"oh baby, you're tired ain't you..? I know, she can take a whole hell of a lot of energy to watch..." He said softly, he set his beer bottle down and started combing gently through your hair with his hand.

"do you care if I crash here tonight..? It's late I don't wanna walk home alone.." you said quietly, Two-Bit let you stay over, you stayed laying where you were originally. He had the biggest smile on his face.

[vind3miat0r]

create mega autism by combining your new hyperfixation (cookie run kingdom) with your current special interest (redacted audio)

aka Vincent and Lovely cosplaying as Black Sapphire and Silverbell :DDD

@moronkyne @zimix-whispers @wuegh @totheak47 @indigo-greer-collins @grilledcheezy92 @fedorabender @lexdoesntdraw @definitelynuwonhere @porters-fangs

@milogreer @ambrose-mp4 @thesolaireslawyer @paythesmith @int3rtwiningh3artstrings

@puffin-smoke @porcelaininkpot @urfrenfishy @galaxyg1204 @thatpadfooted-boy

@secretangentsloveblogs @shadyguyno5 @no-see-um-incorrect @uncorporeal-mk @poedays

@froggytimemachineinternet

if u wanna be added to the taglist just lmk :3

[rotzaprachim]

some smaller bookstores, presses, and museum shops to browse and know about! Most support smaller presses, diverse authors and authors in translation, or fund museums and arts research)

(disclaimer: the only three I’ve personally used are the Yiddish book center, native books, and izzun books! Reccomend all three. Also roughly *U.S. centric & anglophone if people have others from around the world please feel free to add on

birchbark books - Louise Erdrich’s book shop, many indigenous and First Nations books of a wide variety of genres including children’s books, literature, nonfiction, sustainability and foodways, language revitalization, Great Lakes area focus (https://birchbarkbooks.com/)

American Swedish institute museum store - range of Scandinavian and Scandinavian-American/midwestern literature, including modern literature in translation, historical documents, knitters guides, cookbooks, children’s books https://shop.asimn.org/collections/books-1

Native books - Hawai’i based bookstore with a focus on native Hawaiian literature, scholarly works about Hawai’i, the pacific, and decolonial theory, ‘ōlelo Hawai’i, and children’s books Collections | Native Books (nativebookshawaii.org)

the Yiddish book center - sales arm of the national Yiddish book center, books on Yiddish learning, books translated from Yiddish, as well as broader selection of books on Jewish history, literature, culture, and coooking https://shop.yiddishbookcenter.org/

ayin press - independent press with a small but growing selection of modern judaica https://shop.ayinpress.org/collections/all?_gl=1kkj2oo_gaMTk4NDI3Mzc1Mi4xNzE1Mzk5ODk3_ga_VSERRBBT6X*MTcxNTM5OTg5Ny4xLjEuMTcxNTM5OTk0NC4wLjAuMA..

Izzun books - printers of modern progressive AND masorti/trad-egal leaning siddurim including a gorgeous egalitarian Sephardic siddur with full Hebrew, English translation, and transliteration

tenement center museum -https://shop.tenement.org/product-category/books/page/11/ range of books on a dizzying range of subjects mostly united by New York City, including the history literature cookbooks and cultures of Black, Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican, First Nations, and Irish communities

restless books - nonprofit, independent small press focused on books on translation, inter and multicultural exchange, and books by immigrant writers from around the world. Particularly excellent range of translated Latin American literature https://restlessbooks.org/

olniansky press - modern Yiddish language press based in Sweden, translators and publishers esp of modern Yiddish children’s literature https://www.etsy.com/shop/OlnianskyBooks

https://yiddishchildrensbooks.com/ - kinder lokshen, Yiddish children’s books (not so many at the moment but a very cute one about a puffin from faroese!)

inhabit books - Inuit-owned publishing company in Nunavut with an “aim to preserve and promote the stories, knowledge, and talent of Inuit and Northern Canada.” Particularly gorgeous range of children’s books, many available in Inuktitut, English, French, or bilingual editions https://inhabitbooks.com/collections/inhabit-media-books-1

rust belt books - for your Midwest and rust belt bookish needs! Leaning towards academic and progressive political tomes but there are some cookbooks devoted to the art of the Midwest cookie table as well https://beltpublishing.com/

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 3: Steal My Girl]

A/N: Hello lovely readers! Thank you so so so much for the love this fic has received. I wanted to give you a heads up that I will be co-leading a field trip to Japan from July 4th-14th and will therefore have much less time to write. HOPEFULLY I won’t have to skip a Sunday update, but I wanted to make you aware just in case. I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!!! 💜

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, Aegon-induced chaos, ANGST, Iceland, you cannot escape the Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Selected Chapter Quote: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Word count: 8.3k (wtf I need to chill).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927 @mariahossain @echos-muses @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​

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Athens, Madrid, Porto, Vienna, Stockholm, and now: descending into Reykjavik through clouds like iron. The North Atlantic is an endless sheen of cold overcast blue, a mirror of the sky. The earth is rocky and anemic. There are no jewel tones here, no sapphires or emeralds or aquamarines or fire opals or topazes. It is impossible to look down at Iceland, this dominion of impassionate jaggedness, and not think of how the Vikings had to reap their treasures from every other corner of Europe, silver and gold and glass and slaves piled into ships to be rowed back to the hostile earth they clung to, perhaps just to prove they could.

Across the aisle of the private jet—more like a penthouse than a plane, posh neutral colors and hand-stitched leather—Luke is showing Aemond his latest lyrics, loops of silver on matte black pages. They’re good, from what you’ve heard. They’re really good. And that tells you what kind of person Aemond truly is as he helps Luke polish rocks into gemstones. Anybody can soften the blow of mediocrity. It takes courage to build ladders for people who might one day outclimb you.

Daeron is playing his Nintendo 64, which is hooked up to a 98-inch flat screen tv; Mario is leaping through paintings into worlds of lava, ice, sentient ticking bombs. Criston is answering emails. Cregan is sprawled across a couch with his sunglasses on, presumably sound asleep. Jace is leering at you, dark hair hanging in his face and slurping a Vesper.

You ask him half-mocking: “What tattoo are you going to get for Reykjavik?”

He yanks off his sequined red blazer—nothing underneath, as usual—and twists around to show you the puffin on his left shoulder blade. Comet, at some point in time that preceded you, has already been to Iceland. “Cute, right? Wanna pet it?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I asked.”

He grins. “No you’re not.”

Aegon kicks the back of Jace’s chair. He’s scribbling some notes of his own, which is unusual. In place of a spiral notebook with onyx pages, Aegon is writing on crinkled Starbucks receipts with a Sharpie. He’s wearing his favorite aviator sunglasses, khaki cargo pants, an excessively bright cyan tank top, and matching Crocs.

Baela stares blankly out the window for a few seconds—like she’s buffering, a lagging connection—and then she looks to you hopefully. “Shopping when we land?”

“Does Iceland have shops…?”

“Probably more than Kansas,” Aemond says, then smiles mischieviously.

“Missouri,” you fling back. He returns his attention to Luke.

“They totally have shops in Iceland,” Baela assures you.

“Then I am amenable. I need more concert outfits.” You mostly wear your boy band t-shirts from home, which has become a joke: One Direction, Backstreet Boys, New Kids On The Block, NSYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Boyz II Men, 98 Degrees, BTS…but never Comet Donati. Anyone but them. Aegon calls you a traitor. Aemond teases, smirks, tries to hide how much he watches you the same way people contemplate art on museum walls, a little confounded, a little entranced.

“Rhaena?” Baela says. “Hello? Hello? Hola? Bonjour? Rhaena?”

Rhaena startles, peering up from her novel: Jurassic Park. Once upon a time, as you’ve learned, she had planned to study paleontology. She wants to be alone in the middle of a field someplace digging up bones. Well, no great tragedy there; one is never too old to be a paleontologist. She can take off five years, or ten years, or twenty, or thirty to see Luke through his touring days and then pick back up her own ambitions like keys left on a hook. But Baela gave up a ballet scholarship to follow Jace across the globe, puddle to puddle, land to land, and in your albeit limited understanding, ballerinas age in something like dog years. Their career is a brilliant, lightning-brief flash and then long, anonymous decades running out their mortal clock as choreographers, backup dancers, personal trainers, instructors for blue-blooded five-year-olds. Baela won’t be able to reclaim that dream for much longer. It might be too late already. She is out of practice; but she misses ballet. When Jace is being snide or oblivious, you’ve seen her gazing out windows—Escalades, hotels, jets—wondering if it was all worth it. You gut yourself for someone and they don’t even have the courtesy to put up a gravestone. It’s only natural to develop a propensity to haunt.

“What?” Rhaena asks.

“Shopping. This afternoon. Interested?”

Rhaena’s eyes go wide. She fidgets: closing and then opening her book, touching a hand to her earrings, delicate strings of small silver hearts. “Um…I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Oh, not this again,” Baela groans.

“Just go without me. Bring me back something, you know what I like.”

“What’s the problem?” You are investigative but not accusatory. The tone is essential.

“She’s scared of store employees,” Baela says.

“Well you don’t have to make it sound like that—!”

“What’s so scary about store employees?” you ask Rhaena, calm, cool, collected, nonjudgmental. Aemond glances over, as he often does when you’re working, like he can’t get enough of watching that switch flip, when you slink covertly into therapist mode like a water moccasin weaves through swamps, subtle ripples in the muddied water and vigilant eyes.

“I just hate it when people are watching me,” Rhaena says, twirling an earring. “They’re always waiting right by the door—especially at the posh places like the ones Baela goes to—and they want to know what I’m shopping for, and they want to make suggestions, and they follow me to the fitting room and ask what I like and what I don’t. And I can’t get rid of them! Even if I’m like ‘Just looking, thanks!’ they’ll circle back every five minutes to check on me. I can’t stand it. I get so frazzled I can’t decide how I really feel about a skirt or dress or whatever because I’m too busy trying to make conversation with someone I don’t want to talk to anyway. I end up with a headache and a shopping bag full of regrets. I’d rather click a button on my MacBook Air and save myself the suffering.”

You nod sagely. “What is it about talking to the employees that stresses you out so much?”

“I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I don’t want to cause problems.”

“But it’s not like you’re going to do anything they haven’t experienced before. They see hundreds, maybe even thousands of customers a month. And even if you did something ridiculously, dementedly embarrassing, like…um…hey, Aegon, what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done while clothes shopping?”

“I fell asleep in a fitting room. I pissed on the floor. I set something on fire. I vandalized One Direction merchandise.”

“No, there was that other time,” Daeron says. Mario is swimming through rings of underwater coins; they chime gleefully as he collects them.

“What other time?” Aegon says.

Daeron grins. “Come on. You know.”

Aegon remembers. “Oh yeah. Once I bit a girl’s feet until I accidentally ripped off part of a toenail and she bled everywhere. But that wasn’t my fault. She was begging for it. It was consensual.”

Criston, not looking away from his emails, says: “And that’s why Aegon is now banned from all Michael Kors locations for life.”

“Right.” You turn back to Rhaena. “So you would never do anything that deranged. But even if somehow you did, what’s the actual worst-case scenario? What, realistically, could happen as a result?”

Rhaena considers this. “The employees will think I’m weird, I guess.”

“So what you’re so concerned about is that the store employees—who are literally paid to be inconvenienced by you—might think you’re weird? Which they’ll remember for, what, maybe an hour before some other customer gives them a more memorable calamity to focus on? You don’t think they’re more annoyed by purse-dog-toting heiresses screeching at them or cokeheads pissing on their floors?”

“Rude,” Aegon says.

Rhaena smiles guiltily. “I mean, when you put it that way, it does sound stupid.”

“Not stupid,” you insist. “Just out of proportion.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “Okay. I guess I’ll go shopping.”

“Yes!” Baela cheers, already scrolling through Reykjavik shops on her iPhone.

“Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, and then hurls something at you like a frisbee. It’s an Amex Black Card.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “What’s my budget?”

“No budget. As long as it’s slutty.”

“I will buy nothing but cardigans and mom jeans.” You crane your neck to peek at his receipts. The black Sharpie squiggles aren’t words; they’re shapes, pictures. “What are you drawing?”

“New merch designs!” Aegon holds up the receipts so you can see.

“Circles…?”

He is somewhat wounded. “Donuts!”

You don’t even know where to begin. “Why donuts, Aegon?”

“Because that’s his code word for doing lines in the bathroom,” Criston says.

“No!” Aegon objects. “Because Donati sounds like donuts! So we could have all these mini donuts, print them on hats or shirts or whatever, and then in the frosting where the sprinkles would be we can put tiny stars, suns, moons, planets, galaxies…and comets, obviously.”

Jace scoffs. “I think you spend a little too much time thinking about donuts.”

Aegon goes quiet. So does everyone else. Gazes flit nervously around the cabin. The only sounds are the roar of the jet and Mario 64, although Daeron has turned his back on the cheerful Italian protagonist and is looking pensively over his shoulder at Jace. Aegon resumes sketching his cosmic Sharpie donuts, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Hey,” you say to Jace, and then once you have his attention, wicked dark eyes: “Shut the fuck up.”

“What?”

“It’s a great idea. It’s a really adorable idea, actually. Let’s see you come up with something better. Go on, whenever you’re ready. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting. But you’re not much of an ideas guy, are you, Jace? Fortunately, you’ve always had other people around to pull that weight.”

Jace opens his mouth to say something, then snaps it shut as Cregan stands up. He towers over you both, as tall as Aemond but more muscly all over, in the chest and the shoulders and the legs. He lowers his sunglasses to show his eyes: greyish, cold, flinty. He glares at Jace, and then at you, and then at Jace again. Jace holds up both hands, showing his palms. You bow your head in capitulation. Cregan lies back down on the couch and repositions his sunglasses just as the pilot turns on the fasten seatbelts signs. As you click yours into place, you exchange a glance with Aemond across the aisle. He is smiling, foxlike and approving, as if he can’t wait to see what else you have left to show him.

“So!” Baela says. “Guess who found a shop in Reykjavik that sells Gucci!”

The jet glides through mist and fog to make a rather bumpy landing at Keflavik International Airport, fighting against gusts of wind coming in off the North Atlantic Ocean, the same water that swallowed the Titanic, the Faucett Peru Boeing 727, the Free Life hot air balloon, whaling vessels and Viking longships, countless cruisers and destroyers and submarines that blasted holes into each other during the world wars. As the band prepares to disembark, Aemond reaches into the front pocket of his shirt—black, with white circling koi fish—and slides out a pair of sunglasses. He doesn’t like wearing them. They limit his vision even more than it already is. But he never walks into an airport without sunglasses on, you’ve discovered. Just in case paparazzi are there snapping photos.

“You don’t have to do that,” you tell Aemond.

He gestures to his scar and his blind eye, a pale cloudy blue. “I’ve thought about just getting it cut out. But then I’d have to worry about shoving in a fake one.”

“I think it’s kind of beautiful,” you say. “It reminds me of Neptune or something.”

And the look he gives you, the look, like he’s never heard anything like this before, like he didn’t know that words could fit together in that order. You hold out your hand to him. He lays the sunglasses in your palm. You put them on, grinning up at him.

“Now I’m the one who looks like a multi-millionaire popstar.”

“Hey, we match!” Aegon says as he follows you and Aemond out of the jet, massaging your shoulders and clopping noisily in his Crocs.

There are paparazzi at the airport, but only two of them, young men in black hoodies who dart around loosing flashes into the stuffy, aggressively heated air. Jace, Baela, Daeron, and Aegon beam and wave, radiant, magnetic, born celebrities. Rhaena smiles politely but hides behind Luke. Cregan saunters and smolders, knowing exactly what his devotees expect from him. Criston and the security guards are loaded up with suitcases like pack mules. The paparazzi don’t pay much attention to Aemond—a former heartthrob, a cracked relic, a fossil or a ruin—but one of them snaps a few pictures of him. Aemond turns his face so they’ll get his good side, his unmarred side…and then he grabs for your hand. You try not to reveal how ecstatic you are, how wildly, uncoolly, over-the-moon thrilled. Your expression might end up commemorated forever in a tabloid, after all.

Shopping in Reykjavik is mostly wool sweaters, hiking boots, and weather-proof jackets, but Baela leads you and Rhaena to a boutique that carries something more her speed: Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, Valentino, Saint Laurent. You and Baela try to distract the employees as much as possible; still, they find time to nettle Rhaena with those bothersome, predictable, unnecessary questions. She gets a little flustered, but she fights the instinct to run and hide, to allow herself to sink into a frenetic puddle of self-inquisition. You can almost see the words scrolling behind her dark gentle eyes like a news ticker: They get paid to help me. They aren’t going to remember any of this in a few hours. I’m not on a stage. I’m not being judged.

In the fitting room, you take two selfies to send to Aemond’s WhatsApp account: one in a flowing neon yellow gown, the other in a short, velvet, sparkly black dress embroidered with silver stars.

You ask: Day or night?

He answers before you’ve changed back into your jeans and pink Harry Styles hoodie. Night, obviously. And then he adds: Which constellation are you? Vulpecula the fox? Cygnus the swan?

“God, he’s such a dork,” you murmur to yourself, smiling. You have to think for a while before you reply. You don’t know many constellations; that makes it difficult to rattle off something witty. Then you are inspired. You type: Definitely not Virgo :)

He responds immediately: :)))))

“What does that mean?” you whisper to yourself in the solitude of the boxlike fitting room. “What the hell does that mean???” He spends nearly all of his time with you, but he rarely touches you. He’s never made a move. He’s never even kissed you. You wouldn’t mind if he did. No, fuck the coyness that women are supposed to cloak themselves in to preserve their worth. You’re waiting for him to kiss you like someone drowning waits for a gasp of air.

Despite Aemond’s vote, you can’t help yourself. You buy both dresses. You don’t look much like an Aegon Targaryen, but the cashier doesn’t seem too troubled by this. Baela and Rhaena are still trying on outfits, so you swing your bag around boredly and wander over to see what Criston is up to. At Aemond’s insistence, he accompanied you on this shopping expedition and left the rest of the security detail back at the Reykjavik EDITION, a luxury hotel overlooking the harbor. Criston is in the jewelry section and holding up a medallion necklace, rotating it to see how the light reflects off the speckling of tiny gemstones, the wise golden face. His own face is distant and melancholy.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Criston!” you say. “All those emeralds. Who’s pictured on it?”

“Saint Jude. Lost causes.”

Interesting. “Are you religious?”

“Not especially. But Alicent is.”

“Who…?”

Criston walks off to the cash register. You watch him go, curious and perplexed.

Back at the hotel, you enter your suite to find a blond Targaryen lounging in your bed…but perhaps not the right one. Aegon still has his Crocs on and is, for some reason, clutching a plushie puffin. He glances over at you, noting your shopping bag.

“Fashion show?” he says. “I hope it’s nothing but miniskirts and bikinis.”

“Don’t you have places to be? Substances to snort?”

“Cregan is currently trying to locate some.”

“That’s really not good for you. Physically or mentally. You might be addicted.”

He barks a laugh, like it’s absurd. “You can’t get addicted to coke, Stargirl.”

“You definitely can.”

He suddenly looks panicked, like he’s never considered this before.

“So.” You hesitate. “Aemond.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.”

“He’s insecure. Very insecure, though he’s learned how to hide it.”

Aegon throws and catches the puffin, bouncing it off the ceiling. “I wouldn’t disagree.”

“It goes deeper than the accident, I think. The scar, his eye, what happened with the band…that awakened it again. That freed something that he’d had locked away. But where did it start?”

Aegon stares up at the ceiling. He tosses the puffin a few more times, abusing it terribly. “Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know? If you’re popular and beloved and understood, you carry a certain self-confidence into the rest of your life with you like a suitcase. It’s an assumption that people care about what you have to say. It’s a conviction of your own value. It’s a presupposition the world would have to wrestle away from you. But if you’re a loser in high school, that stays with you too. And it’s one hell of a heavy suitcase to lug around.”

You try to imagine seeing Aemond through eyes that aren’t awed, craving, quietly adoring. It’s simply not possible. “He was alone?” you ask softly, dreading the answer.

“I had friends. He had grudges.” Aegon’s mouth twists as he tries to stop it from trembling. “My father…”

“I know, Aegon.” Your voice is gentle. “You told me in Kansas City, that night at the bar. You don’t have to say it again.”

He is relieved. “Yeah. So people respond to that in different ways, right? I lived in the present. I talked to anybody who would listen to me, and I partied and I got high and I got laid, and I was the antithesis of the kind of son my father would have wanted just to spite him. Aemond escaped into the past. He read books, traced bloodlines, collected old obsolete things. Maybe that gave him hope that a better place was waiting for him out there somewhere, a better time. He got to be cool for three years. That’s it, and that’s all he’ll ever have. He was the one with vision. He said he was going to audition for The X Factor, and I only went with him to meet girls. Then he made it through the first round and I did too. And when they were going to cut us, he found Jace and Luke and Cregan and convinced everyone to start performing together. The show wanted to replace Luke, did you know that? They thought he was too boyish, too innocent. Aemond fought for him. And then Comet finished in second place, and all the sudden we were signed to a label, and we were selling millions of records and we were touring, and we were winning Grammys, and we were buying our parents and siblings houses…and two months after our third album came out, Aemond was maimed at the Budokan and it was time for him to get off the ride.”

You stare at Aegon, tremendously sad, not knowing what to say. Sometimes the right words don’t exist.

Aegon smirks. “He really likes you.”

“Maybe.” And then, with guileless vulnerability: “I hope so.”

“That’s dangerous.”

Your brow knits into fearful grooves. “Why?”

“I know how to enjoy something without owning it. I don’t think Aemond does.”

You don’t want to ask, but you have to. “What was Shelby like?”

Aegon considers this for a long time before he answers. “She was simultaneously too good for him and not good enough.”

Too gorgeous. Too cool. Too Pinterest-board perfect, airy like summer. But not deep. A river, a glimmer, but with no understanding of the abyss. You aren’t sure how you know that this is what Aegon means, but you do. You don’t want to think about Shelby anymore. You pivot. “So Aemond is the past and you’re the present. Who’s the future? Daeron?”

Aegon smiles, lazy and warm. “I think you’re the future.”

“Yeah right. Get your Crocs off my bed.”

He complies, groaning, flopping onto the floor gracelessly.

“Where’d you get the puffin?”

“Some Icelandic kid recognized me in the elevator. He wanted to give me a present. In return, I signed an autograph and got him and his dad front row seats to the show tomorrow. So I’d say it was a very favorable exchange for him.”

“You’re a saint,” you say, and then find yourself thinking randomly of Saint Jude again. Lost causes. Lost causes.

Aegon grins at you as he crawls to his feet and makes for the door. “Patron saint of mayhem.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re watching old Comet Donati performances on YouTube when the hotel fire alarm goes off. And it’s strange, because the unscarred, clear-eyed boy on the screen is Aemond but also isn’t him; he smiles more easily, he looks at people without suspicion, he is ebullient and confident and carefree like kids blowing bubbles on front porches. When you open your suite door, dressed in your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized New Kids On The Block t-shirt, Aemond is just arriving.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’re still awake.” And then he walks with you to the nearest stairwell.

Outside, the hotel guests are clustered together with their travel companions, shuddering under coats and sweaters and blankets clasped around their shoulders like capes. Even at the start of July, Iceland is cold: fifties during the day as Americans like you measure in Fahrenheit, forties at night, nearly always overcast. It’s 11 p.m., but the sun won’t set until midnight, and even then only for a few short hours; the sky is wearing the colors of dusk, lilac, rose pink, pale blue, fire and gold. You’re shivering, rubbing your bare forearms and feeling the goosebumps that have risen there like braille. Aemond tugs off his black and white Calvin Klein hoodie and offers it to you. As you pull it over your head, you breathe in the pieces of him that have snared in the fabric: smoke and cologne, gin and soap and the brine of the seaside air. Now wearing only his jeans and his koi fish shirt, Aemond lights a cigarette and gazes up at the hotel, postmodern angles and semi-transparent glass.

“No one’s going to give me a hoodie?” Aegon says, quaking in his cyan tank top. Criston reluctantly unzips his bomber jacket and hands it over.

“Did you do this?” Criston asks him, meaning the fire alarm.

“What?! No! No way, man! It wasn’t me!”

Criston turns to Cregan for confirmation. Cregan shrugs, ambiguous. “I knew it!” Criston exclaims. He is distraught.

Several fire engines arrive, red lights strobing, and firefighters enter the hotel to investigate. Baela and Jace are standing near each other but not speaking, arms crossed, faces tense. Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron are watching an episode of The Crown on Luke’s iPhone. Cregan lights a cigarette and manages to take two drags before Criston notices and lunges to bat it out of his hand.

“Stop it!” Criston orders. “You’ll ruin your voice!” Nobody tells Aemond not to smoke. His voice doesn’t matter anymore.

Aegon asks you, his hands buried in the pockets of Criston’s jacket: “Would you run into a burning building to save me?”

“Why would you be in a burning building?”

“That’s really not the point.”

“I’d think about it.”

Luke says, the glow of his iPhone dancing across his face: “Wow, Prince Charles is a bitch.”

“You’d think about it?” Aegon says to you. “You’d think about it?!”

“You have no excuse to be in a burning building. You have now experienced an evacuation, you know exactly how to leave a building successfully, if you’re still in it for some reason then that’s your problem.”

“You hear that, Criston?” Aegon says. “This is a good thing. Now everyone knows what to do if there’s a real fire! And we’re in hotels all the time, so this is super helpful!”

“Please shut up,” Criston begs.

“Hey Cregan, share with the class, what did you learn about fire safety from this fortuitous occasion?”

“I already knew what to do.”

Aegon is grinning. “Yeah? What’s that, Cregan?”

“Get in the shower and wait for the fire department to come rescue me.”

Everyone laughs—even Jace and Baela—and Cregan’s lips quirk up in one corner, the only hint that he is joking. A parade of firefighters exit the hotel. One of them is carrying a toaster. Black smoke pours out of the slits in the top.

She says something in Icelandic that you can’t understand, then repeats in English: “Who was trying to cook hotdogs in a toaster?”

The guests chatter incredulously among themselves: Who would do such a thing?

You, Aemond, Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, Cregan, Jace, Baela, and Criston are mindful to look anywhere except at Aegon. You gaze out at the horizon, the kaleidoscopic midnight sun. Aegon peers down at his Crocs, hair tangled and blue eyes wide.

“Very well,” the firefighter with the toaster says, a little smugly. “We will consult with the hotel staff and see which guest was registered to that room.”

“Goddammit!” Criston hisses, and shoves by the band to go meet the firefighters. You can’t hear what’s being said, but his hands move in exaggerated gestures of humiliation, apology, restitution. Fortunately, the Icelandic people seem to be forgiving.

Daeron turns to Aegon. All he says is: “Why?”

“I couldn’t figure out the buttons on the stove!”

Criston comes trudging back to the band. Guests are being admitted into the hotel to return to their drinks, their television shows and mystery novels, their families, their lovers, their beds. “Alright, it’s taken care of. Go to your rooms. All of you, right now, go.”

No one has the heart to argue with him; he looks half-broken already. Everybody disperses. You and Aemond end up alone together as the elevator zooms to the fifth floor. He takes his small, square metal lighter out of his jeans pocket and toys with it, repeatedly flicking the lid open and then shutting it again.

You point to it. “Vintage lighter. Vintage bike. And yet you write with glittery gel pens instead of quills and ink. Poser.”

“I like old things,” he says, smiling. “I think history is important.”

And you hear Aegon’s words like an echo: That’s dangerous. You start pulling off Aemond’s hoodie to give it back to him.

“No,” he says, sounding pleased. “You keep it.” So you do, finding excuses to bring the sleeves close to your face—touching your hair, your lips, your eyelashes—so you can inhale him.

Aemond leaves you at the door of your suite, but you don’t go inside. You wait for another five minutes until Criston steps out of an elevator and into the hallway, alone and agitated. Still, he has concern to spare for you.

“You okay? Locked yourself out?”

“No. I was just hoping to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” Criston is tired, but his eyes, dark like fertile earth, are attentive.

“When Aemond was hurt…when the label yanked him out of Comet…no one fought for him?”

“Luke did,” Criston says.

And then he continues down the hall, shoulders low, a man troubled by both the past and the future.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Blue Lagoon is like Aemond’s sightless left eye: a milky blue, opaque, something you could drown in. The band spends several hours splashing and wading in water warmer than the blood in your veins. The white silica mud that forms the floor is soft beneath your bare feet, squishing between your toes; people spread it over their skin like a skin shedding its scales in reverse. Criston orders strawberry-banana smoothies from the in-water bar, trying to distract Aegon and Jace from the beer and the wine. Currently, Comet’s most worrisome performers are locked in combat: Daeron is on Aegon’s shoulders, Luke on Jace’s, entangled in a spirited chicken fight. This is much preferable to their first choice, Marco Polo, which led to Jace ‘accidentally’—and repeatedly—bumping into various early-twenties female tourists, whereupon he would inevitably profusely apologize, introduce himself, and pose for selfies, beads of turbid mineral water dripping from his curls. Cregan has drifted to the other side of the lagoon, floating on his back and basking beneath the overcast midday sun.

“I can’t believe they made everyone shower naked before getting in here,” Rhaena says, drinking her smoothie, submerged in rippling blue up to her collarbones. She had nearly refused to go through with it—I’ll wait in the car! I’ll be fine! I’ll just watch The Crown on my phone for three hours!—until you and Baela offered to hold up your towels to shield her from view and insisted that none of the other guests (all female, as the showers are sorted by gender) were paying attention. Nudity is not a big deal in Iceland. It’s quite a far cry from Missouri.

“You gotta honor the local culture, babe.” Baela flashes Rhaena a teasing grin. “Scandinavians are super progressive. No shame about bodies or relationships. Very sex-positive.”

“Well Jace is certainly blending in.”

Now Baela isn’t grinning anymore. She frowns broodingly out over the lagoon. Rhaena, regretting that she said it but knowing it can’t be taken back, noisily slurps at her smoothie even when it’s gone. You and Aemond exchange an uncomfortable glance. Baela has never broached the topic of her relationship with you, but you know it’s coming. You can sometimes see her working up the nerve like a bucket filling with water, drop by drop.

You change the subject. “See, Rhaena? The naked shower thing wasn’t even that bad. It was over in two minutes, and absolutely nobody was judging you. And if you hadn’t done it, you would have missed out on this amazing experience!”

“You weren’t nervous?” she asks you. “Not at all?”

“I little bit, yeah. Of course. I’m an American.” Everyone chuckles. “But logically, I knew no one would really be watching me. I’m not that interesting. And also…I wasn’t truly naked.”

“Huh…?”

You wiggle your eyebrows and, smiling radiantly, spin around and point to the black-ink tattoo between your shoulder blades, underscored by the straps of your swimsuit that cross just below it: a comet with a streaming tail, lyrics that Aemond dreamed up in a kinder world. Rhaena laughs.

“Oh, right, of course.”

“You are obsessed with that thing!” Baela says, but she sounds relatively happy again.

“It’s true. I am. I admit it.” Sometimes you find yourself staring at it in hotel bathroom mirrors still foggy with steam, wiping away condensation to marvel at the irrevocable ways in which Aemond has marked you, ways you are thankful cannot be erased. When you wear anything that reveals your upper back like a spilled secret, you often catch Aemond gazing at it too. Now he reaches over and skims a fingerprint along the circle that his lyrics form around the comet:

I’ll come back for you if it kills me

Comets clip by again after eons and so can I

There’s a jolt down your spine like lightning, but more eager than jarring. All other thoughts vanish from you. You look over at Aemond, and he looks back, his lips slightly parted, his right eye beckoning to you. And you know it will be good with him, if it happens, when it happens. It will be more than good. It will be laced with an intensity, with a dire breed of necessity that you’ve never tasted before. All at once, you and Aemond realize what you’ve done and drift away from each other again, weakening gravity, elliptical orbits.

“No shame, guys,” Baela quips, raising her smoothie glass in a toast. “Sex-positive, remember?”

After the 45-minute drive back to Reykjavik, and after the concert, the band coalesces in Jace’s suite. There aren’t many hangers-on for this stop of the tour; Reykjavik is isolated and peaceful and not particularly desirable for friends of convenience who are more interested in clubbing and drugs than camaraderie. You wouldn’t trade nights like this for anything in the world.

Aemond is reading off his latest notes, white ink on black paper, stars on the backdrop of the universe. A Benson & Hedges cigarette smolders between two fingers on his left hand. Smoke curls up around his face. “Aegon, you were three steps behind the choreography for basically the entire show.”

“Yeah, that was on purpose.”

“It wasn’t,” Aemond counters, but he can’t help but smile.

“Women love a tragic disaster of a man who is screaming to be fixed.”

“Daeron,” Aemond continues. “I really like that hair flip you’ve started doing…”

Aegon is knocking back dark glass bottles of Gædingur Stout and slurring, very drunk and sinking deeper by the minute. In the absence of coke, he has resorted to other crutches. You are squeezed between Aemond and Baela on one of the couches. And Aemond isn’t really touching you, but he also is: the delicious subtle pressure of his thigh against yours, occasional nudges of his elbow, ostensibly unintentional grazes of knuckles and palms. He’s drinking his usual, a Bramble, and so are you, swirls of slow-moving pink like drops of blood in open water. And you think in a hazy bliss like listening to ground-level conversations from the bottom of a swimming pool: Tonight, tonight, tonight, he’s going to come back to my room with me tonight.

“Oh great,” you mumble as you check your Facebook messages on your iPhone.

“What’s wrong?” Rhaena asks. She’s nestled against Luke on the opposite couch, twirling locks of his hair around her benign, delicate fingers. Jace is sitting beside Luke, drinking a Vesper and trying not to make eye contact with Baela. Daeron is in the fuzzy white sheepskin lounge chair, Cregan perched on a bar stool, Criston standing watchfully with a vivid green bottle of Perrier in one hand. When he briefly steps out onto the balcony to take a call from the label, you can hear only the most dim, indistinct murmurings through the thick tinted glass, sounds but not words. Aegon is sitting—and occasionally crawling around—on the floor. The Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way is playing.

“I’m subletting my apartment in Kansas City and there is a strict no pet policy. But my neighbors snitched on the new tenant and apparently she’s got a Flemish Giant rabbit living there with her.”

“Not even a normal rabbit,” Baela muses. “A giant rabbit.”

You sigh. “All the rugs are going to be chewed up by the time I get back.” And Aemond glances over anxiously, like he doesn’t want any reminders that you won’t always be around.

“What’s your apartment like?” he says.

“Old. Vintage. Most of it hasn’t been updated since the 1950s. You’d appreciate it, actually. It would match your aesthetic.”

“Maybe I’ll have to see it sometime.”

You smirk at him, flirtatious, baiting, the silver stars on your dress reflecting golden lamplight. “Maybe. If I invite you.”

He leans in to whisper so only you can hear: “You will.”

“I think I’d be a landlord if I wasn’t famous,” Jace says, nursing his Vesper meditatively like an aspiring philosopher. “I’d just sit back and collect the checks as they rolled in. And you get to raise the rent every year.”

“Yeah, that sounds like you,” Aegon says, grinning up at him saccharinely.

“What would you be, Stargirl?” Jace asks; and you realize you hate the sound of him using Aegon’s name for you.

“I mean, a therapist.” And everyone laughs, even Criston.

Jace flushes, brushing his curls back from his face with one hand. “Oh yeah. Clearly.”

You look to Aemond. “You’d be a historian or an archivist or something.”

“Or a writer,” Luke says.

“Maybe,” Aemond agrees, a tad uncomfortable with the attention. “Or an animal activist, maybe. I’d like to do some sort of good in the world.”

Aegon shouts, far more loudly than necessary: “What would you be, Criston?”

“Thousands of miles away from you.” More laughter, riotous; but Criston is smiling a little.

“What about you, Cregan?” Jace asks. “What would you want to be if Comet didn’t exist?”

Cregan downs a shot of Absolut Vodka. “A plastic surgeon.”

“What? Why?”

Cregan shrugs. “You get to see tits all the time.”

There are scandalized squeals and guffaws. Baela says: “I would not let you anywhere near my tits.”

“And not just tits!” Daeron adds brightly. “Don’t they do, what’s it called, vaginal rejuvenation?”

Cregan points at him with his empty shot glass. “Exactly.”

“Oh God, that sounds painful.” Rhaena hides her face behind a flute of champagne.

“Yeah,” you say. “I don’t think I’m interested.”

Aegon snorts, drips of Gaedingur Stout flying from his nose. “Like you’d ever need it. You’ve got a pornstar pussy, fucking gorgeous.”

A hush sweeps through the room like a dust storm. Baffled glances dart around wildly. Immediately, Aegon realizes his mistake. He gazes up at you from the floor with large, glazed, drunken blue eyes that glisten with apology. You gape back, half-furious and half-petrified.

“Wait, what?” Aemond says. Ashes build on his cigarette, forgotten.

“Oh, wow.” Jace gestures from you to Aegon. “You guys…you guys have…?”

“It was once, a long time ago,” you say quickly. “Like, a really long time ago. Over a year ago.”

Aegon is trying to help. “Ages ago. Ancient history.”

“Where? In Kansas City?!” Baela gasps, stunned.

Aegon tells her: “You remember that bar we all went to after the show, right? The one on the roof?”

Baela is blinking at you, not comprehending. “You hooked up with him? In a bar?! Aegon?!”

“Um, yeah.”

Jace brays out a laugh, shaking his head. “Damn, Stargirl. I thought you had better taste than that.”

You feel like you’re fighting for your life. You feel like you can’t breathe. “It really wasn’t serious…” Not the sex part, anyway.

“No, no, it totally wasn’t,” Aegon agrees gamely. “It was like, what? How long were we in that bathroom? Maybe ten minutes total?”

Daeron is giggling. “Bruh, stop roasting yourself!”

As the chatter flies, you hide your face in your hands; beneath your palms, your cheeks are hot. You can feel Aemond pulling away from you, spaces opening up between your thighs and shoulders and arms like the ever-expanding void of the universe. When you steal a glimpse of him through the cracks in your fingers, he is staring down at the floor. He is silent, but you can see the thoughts—the images—riddling him like bullets. You can see him filling up with them like a punctured ship fills with seawater. He smokes until his cigarette is gone, and then immediately lights another.

Luke is the one to mercifully intercede. “Hey, Criston, where are we going next?”

“Uh,” Criston says, trying not to gawk at you or Aegon. “Let me think. Uh. Oh, right. Paris.”

Jace cackles. “The city of love! How appropriate!”

Criston ignores him. “You have some press interviews and then you’re doing two shows at the Accor Arena on July 7th and 8th…”

Aemond gulps down the rest of his Bramble and then walks out onto the balcony, closing the sliding glass door behind him.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs miserably, then guzzles his Gaedingur Stout.

You bolt off the couch and go after Aemond. The heavy sliding glass door growls as you roll it open and then shut it again. Outside, Reykjavik is cold and windswept. The midnight sun is aflame. It’s still too bright to see the Northern Lights; even if they were there, you would have no way of knowing. Aemond is smoking with his back to you. He’s looking out over the boats bobbing in the harbor, sunbeams glinting on the crests of waves. Flapping gulls swoop and scream.

You say cuttingly, like a surgeon slicing away malignancies: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Aemond flicks ashes over the balcony railing. “I just think I understand you better.”

“What does that mean?”

He whirls to you and says pointedly: “Why are you here?”

A disorienting question. Too easy. “I followed you out onto the balcony.”

“No, here with the band, here in Reykjavik, why are you here?”

You know how the truth sounds, but you can’t rewrite it. “Because Aegon asked me to be.”

“Because he asked you to come fix me, right?” Aemond demands. “To crack open my skull and stir things around until I’m okay with the fact that my life ended seven months ago.”

“No!” you shout into the wind. “I mean, yes, he thought I’d be able to help you, to help Comet, but that’s not what this is about for me anymore—”

“Why would I believe you? You’re a liar, you’re a confirmed liar, why would I believe a single goddamn word of what you have to say?!”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“Friends!” Aemond roars. He doesn’t touch you, but his rage is horrifying, ageless and deep like lava bubbling beneath tectonic plates. “You said you and Aegon were friends!”

“We are friends—”

“No, you’re not. You met him, you fucked him, and then when he invited you to join the tour you dropped everything to do it, why, because you still want him? And I’m the charity case? Or I was just next in line? Maybe you were planning to work your way through the whole band. Who’s next, Jace? I don’t think he’d object.”

“No—!”

“You and Aegon. And you didn’t even have the guts to tell me.”

“Because I didn’t want to have this conversation, the one where you eviscerate me for something that happened before I even met you!”

“You chose him,” Aemond says, venomous. “At the bar in Kansas City, you chose him.”

“What?! Aemond, I don’t even remember seeing you, I don’t think you were there at all—”

“I was there.” He glares at you, thunderstorms, tornadoes, the earth splitting in two. “Last June. Rooftop bar. String lights. View of the river. I remember it, I was there.”

“Well then you didn’t notice me either and you probably spent the whole night with Pilates princess, Malibu Barbie Shelby, so what’s the fucking point?!”

He glowers at the horizon. Iceland DOES have jewel tones, you think erratically. But they only come out at night, like owls or bats. “It’s different.”

“It’s not different! You’re so convinced people don’t like you that you do insane, irrational things that make people not like you! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy! It’s a fucking circle, you idiot!”

“I’ve had enough psychoanalysis, thanks.”

“No, you could use some more of it, you could use a lot more, you have so many demons it’s like Paranormal Activity in your brain, they’re in there all day tearing things off the walls and kicking over chairs and sabotaging anything you dare to care about and you let them!”

He turns away from you. “Just go the fuck back to Kansas.”

“I’m from Missouri!”

Aemond pitches the end of his cigarette over the balcony. His good eye flicks to the sliding glass door. The curtains rustle as the faces that hovered there just seconds ago disappear back into the suite. Very muffled through the thick glass, you can hear Criston chastising people.

You ask Aemond, embers in your throat: “This is really something you consider unforgiveable?”

He shakes his head, mournful, violently disappointed. “You’re just a groupie. You’re just a slut.”

Slut. It’s not the word, it’s the way he said it, with dismissiveness, with condemnation, the same way men love to use it as a blade to carve off every other piece of you—kindness, coldness, ferocity, loyalty, wit, passion, talent, triumphs, failures, ghosts—until that one little word is all that’s left. You’re dismantled into a clutter of loose bolts and bent nails. You’re a beef cow that was led into the maze of a gnashing, metal-and-blood processing plant and came out the other side a brainless, raw-pink patty just the right size to fit in a Big Mac box, something to be consumed but not remembered. “What did you say to me?”

He’s staring out into the twilight sky, both hands on the balcony railing. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe I…”

“Are you kidding me?! I can’t believe I got your lyrics tattooed on my fucking back, what am I supposed to do about that now, rip my own skin off?!”

“So get it covered up. I’m sure Aegon would be thrilled to help you choose a new design, or Jace, or Cregan, or Daeron, or whoever.”

“You know what I think?” you say, caustic like acid.

“Don’t say it,” he threatens, low and dark.

“I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to. But you shouldn’t be, Aemond. Because there’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

But he doesn’t hear that part. He only hears the first thing, what you never should have said at all. It’s true, but that doesn’t mean you should have said it. “I hate you,” he says softly, and you can’t think of a reply. The space between you fills up with wind, cold, dying sunlight. Aemond looks at the sliding glass door. “I don’t want to go back in there.”

“Well, we’re five stories off the ground, so you’ll probably have to.”

He studies the series of balconies that run along this side of the hotel, each separated by perhaps three feet of open air. Then he starts climbing over the metal railing.

“Aemond, don’t!”

But it’s too late. Fortunately, he has long limbs. He scrambles onto the next balcony, and then the one after that, and then one more, until he reaches the balcony for his own suite. He tries the sliding glass door—locked—and then sits down to wait for someone to open it. You go back inside Jace’s suite, where everyone pretends to have been talking about something other than you.

“Where’s Aemond?” Criston says, alarmed.

“He’s on the balcony of his suite. You should go let him in.”

“What?!” Criston yells, and then sprints out into the hallway.

You flee too. Both Baela and Aegon try to stop you, try to talk to you. They’re asking what Aemond said. They’re asking if you’re okay. You tell them you’re fine and that you want to be left alone. They argue. You insist. You walk back to your own room and start packing.

Your suitcase fills up with crumpled clothes and souvenirs: a Colosseum pencil sharpener from Rome, a tiny alabaster Apollo from Athens, a Spanish fighting bull refrigerator magnet from Madrid, handmade soap from Porto, a bar of chocolate from Vienna, a moose snow globe from Stockholm, a silica mud mask from the Blue Lagoon, a tiny stuffed comet that Rhaena crocheted for you. You reach back to touch your fingertips to the comet tattooed over your spine, tears biting in your eyes. If I had told him from the start, would that have made a difference? If I had met him first, would we have had a chance? You are gathering up your makeup when you hear a knock on the doorframe.

Cregan lurks there. When he speaks, he sounds startled; he sounds afraid. “You can’t leave.”

“I’ve literally never had a conversation with you, so thanks for the input but I’m still going.”

“No,” he says, persistent. “You can’t leave.”

“Aemond doesn’t want me here.” Your voice is fragile, shattering. “I can’t help him anymore.”

“It’s not just about Aemond. It’s about everyone. They’re all fucked up. They all need you.”

You stare at Cregan, not understanding. “I really don’t think I’m equipped for this.”

He fixes his cool greyish eyes on you. He is harsh but somehow not unkind. “You would never be able to comprehend where I came from. I’m not going back to that. The band has given me everything. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me. You have to stay. You have to fix Comet. You can’t leave.”

He watches you, and you watch him, and you aren’t sure who has the upper hand here, who is the predator and who is the prey. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe everyone is a patchwork of strengths and deficits, fields of gold strewn with landmines.

At last, you relent. And Cregan doesn’t vanish until you’ve begun taking your souvenirs out of your suitcase and placing each of them—carefully, reverently—back on your nightstand where they were before.

[christinetheblackdragon]

Puffin Cookie

The Master of Arctic Vikings

He lead to his apprentices. He have 2 daughters, Black Finch Cookie and Frost Crow Cookie

[wishingforatypewriter]

Day 1: Holiday (Cobra feat. Linzolt)

This was written for Day 1 of my little Four Seasons OC Challenge. This one centers on Cobra (aka Akiak) who is a founding member of the Triple Threat Triad, Zolt's closet friend, and Viper's older brother.

As soon as Cobra opened the door to his fourth-floor walkup, he was greeted with the rich, savory smell of meat roasting. He followed the scent to the kitchen, where Lusa was bending down to take an arctic hen out of the oven. 

“Let me get that, Luz,” he said, but by the time he grabbed a pair of tea towels, his fiancee had already moved the bird onto the cooling rack and started flipping the puffin-seal sausages on the stove.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her middle, hands coming to rest on the baby bump that was just beginning to show. “What happened to taking it easy, huh?” he asked. “The doctor said—”

“Is the doctor going to come here and cook for the Moon Festival?” Lusa replied. “We’ve got your friends tonight and my family tomorrow and your mother already asked if I could bring over some mooncakes and blueberry cookies.”

“You spoke to my mother?”

“One of us has to,” she replied with a pointed look. “And if I can’t promise her the whole family around the table this year, the least I can do is send some desserts. Now, release me. I have noodles to roll.”

Cobra left a lingering kiss on her cheek before letting her go. “At least let me help.” 

“Did you buy the good gin for the polar martinis?”

“Of course,” he said, gesturing towards the large paper bag on the counter. 

“Good. Now go have one for me and entertain your guests,” she said and then promptly shooed him and his gin out of her kitchen.

A few sips into what turned out to be a damn good polar martini, the doorbell rang, and Cobra buzzed in the first of their visitors. A minute later, Zolt and Meilin strolled in, bearing more top shelf liquor and Fire Nation sweets.

“Thanks for coming, guys,” Cobra said, taking the bottles of ice wine and bourbon from them. 

“Thanks for having us,” Meilin replied as Zolt helped her out of her long green coat with fur trim. It was perhaps too nice a coat for the factory girl persona she put on whenever Zolt brought her around, but there was no good way of telling her that without ruining the evening. 

“Think we can afford to cut our people a bonus for the holiday?” Zolt asked once they were settled on the couch. 

Cobra considered it for a moment, weighing the possibility against what he’d last seen in the accounting books. “Then we’d have to do the same thing for the Fire Festival and the Spring Equinox to prove we’re not biased.” 

Zolt shrugged. “We can probably swing it.” 

Cobra bit back a sigh at his friend's magical thinking. “Not unless we edge the Agni Kais out of sports betting, and even then—” 

“Enough triad talk. It's the holidays,” Lusa said as she entered the room, carrying a tray of appetizers. “And poor Meilin’s probably bored out of her mind.”

Cobra took the tray from her and set it down on the coffee table. Then he took her hand and guided her to take his seat on the couch. “You've been on your feet too long, my love.”

“But dessert—”

“I’ll finish it,” he said. 

Lusa gave her head an amused shake. “You have many talents, Akiak, but baking is not one of them.” 

“Don't worry,” Zolt told her. “I'll make sure he doesn't fuck it up.” 

Lusa sent Meilin a questioning look—‘can he actually bake?’—and received a nod and a little smile in return.

“Alright, fine,” she finally said, and leaned back against the couch, one hand on her stomach and started chatting up Meilin. 

“I can't believe you’re gonna be someone's dad soon and you still can't cook for shit,” Zolt said once they were in the kitchen, and he picked up right where Lusa left off.

“And I can't believe you haven't proposed to Meilin yet,” he replied without missing a beat. 

Zolt sighed. “That's not on the table. She wouldn’t want…”  He handed Cobra a bowl of wet ingredients. “Just fuck off and stir that.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the optimist between us?” Cobra asked. “All I’m saying is she might surprise you.”

[intimidatingpuffinstudios]

I'm 99,9% sure it's Manerkol. This time I don't have any second guesses, cause I can't imagine someone else among the cast saying something as ruthless and sexy as….ahm, I mean something like this, sure… 🙄 The rest of the folks (both TSSW and BtM) seem to be good cookies who would unlikely set the world on fire to keep MC dearest by their side and on the other hand there's Manerkol 😈 Btw, love his character with my whole heart. He is my favorite, number one RO from all the IFs I've ever read (and there are plenty). You made the great character and exciting story, dear Puffin. Love, love, love your writing so much! 💖 💖 💖

This is in response to the "let it all burn" quote, and we know it was Daelynn's now, but--

Daelynn has even less morals than Manerkol LMAOO. Manerkol does what he does because he wants the world a better place, believe it or not.

Daelynn does not give a fuck about the world, loyalty to her loved ones is her moral compass.

And--and the part about BtM ROs being sweet cookies-----------

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHASDFDGSGDGSF

wheezing

P.S. Thank you, favorite RO out of all the magnificent IFs out there is big praise 🤩✨️

[diamondzoey]

More bug army incorrect quotes

Victor : Is there anyone here who’s actually straight?

Jemma: *raises hand*

Raine: *puts their hand down*

(Jemma is bisexual)

Amber: Why are your tongues purple?

Azren: We had slushies. I had a blue one.

Jemma : I had a red one.

Amber: oh.

Amber:

Amber: OH.

Nash:

Nash: You drank eachothers slushies?

Raine: Seriously, Korey, how many people would you have killed if we’d asked you to?

Korey: That’s not important

Raine: I DISAGREE.

Sammy: You know what your problem is?

Emerald : I only have one?

Jemma: The best part of an oreo is the cookie part, not the frosting. Deal with it.

Victor: Darkness without light is an abyss. Light without darkness is blinding. You cannot have a coin with one side.

Chester : YO SOCRATES! IT'S A FUCKING COOKIE!

Joan: If I fall down these stairs, I'm just going to lay down and accept my fate.

Modern Au

Duarte: Get in loser, we're going shopping.

Easton: This is a McDonald's drive thru.

Mafia!Jemma: Are you ready to commit?

Mafia!Azren : Like, a crime or a relationship?

Victor : Nothing in life is free.

Raine: Love is free.

Emerald : Knowledge is free.

Sammy: Friendship is free.

Korey: Self-respect is free.

Timmy: Everything's free if you don't pay for it.

The Squad: ...

Emerald : Timmy , that's illegal-

Victor : No, let them finish!

One of the bugs walking around and stubs their toe on a table leg and starts cursing a lot while jumping on one foot

Jemma covering Sammy’s ears:..

Sammy having no idea what’s going on: *Confused

Easton: *Locks Korey in the car.* Act like a child, get treated like a child.

Korey : What? Isn't it illegal to leave a child locked in a car?

Vincent : I got us matching friendship bracelets, and you say I don't care about our relationship.

Chester : These are handcuffs.

Vincent : Yeah, 'cause we're partners in crime!

Jemma in all Aus treating Sammy like her son: :3

Azren in all Aus: being a simp for jemma

Bugs in this one

Victor&Vincent- @littlesiren79

Raine- @willowve01

Sammy- @ccstiles

Duarte- @puffin-smoke

Azren- @strayharmony943

Emerald- @aspenm00n

Korey- @rozeliyawashereyall

Joan- @rustycopper4use

Chester- @not-5-rats

Easton- @itsargyle

Amber- @astralbulldragon13

Nash- @lightdragon789

[applesauce-and-applejacks]

🩷💕💞 Little Snacks I Love! 💞💕🩷

Apple slices with cinnamon! Especially if your slices have lil bunny ears! 🐇

Bananas n Nutella! It's such a nummy combo and an easy snack for anywhere!

Ants on a log - cut up and dethread some celery (or have a big person in your life help you!), spread some peanut butter, and put either chocolate chips or raisins in! And look - those raisins/chocolate chips are marching up the log so well :0

Everyone always says chicken nuggies, but SPECFICALLY Dino ones!! Make up names for each of them and have them with a side of mac n cheese. Speaking of...

Annie's Mac n Cheese! A classic - true and true.

Lil sandwiches lil PB&Js, but if I'm REALLLLY small I want them in fun shapes! I habe Dino cookie cutters and love making lil T-rexes and more 🦖

Homemade or store bought yogurt Popsicles. I love love love juice ones but the creamy ones make me feel so small!

Strawberries!! Especially in lil heart shapes! 🍓❤️🍓

Cereal - big me loves the Puffins brand, but lil me still adores Kix. And specially....

Cheerios with bananas. 👏Comfort👏 food 👏 always 👏

Anything with sprinkles, I used to have dinosaur ones! I should find those again....

I'll reblog and add more to this later but here's a start!!